Nichts ist von Dauer [Nothing lasts forever]

Egon Bunne's film Alles wandelt sich (Everything Changes), made against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin Wall, has lost none of its power and interpretative depth to this day. It brings together three ‘heroes’ with striking statements: Bertolt Brecht for the prologue: ‘Things do not remain as they are.’ Wolfgang Neuss, with his distinctive voice, builds a bridge from deserter to later dropout from society, and Heiner Müller in the epilogue: ‘How it remains is not how it is.’ There is probably no better way to summarise the debate about German history in just under eight minutes.

Sophie Hilbert's film Strahlend grüne Wiese (Radiant Green Meadow) takes a clever look at 80 years of exploitation of the environment and people. Even 30 years after the end of uranium mining, what legacies and stories still lie hidden in Wismut or just below the surface? How should we deal with a ‘radiant’ history, and are transfers between the past and the future conceivable?

In the West, potential and resources were not necessarily collectivised or even confiscated in the interests of the state. Capitalism had and still has much more effective methods, including the franchise system. Independent entrepreneurs become part of a system, submit to the dictates of the franchisor and acquire a temporary right of use. One of the largest franchise companies is McDonald's. In Germany, there are currently 204 independent entrepreneurs operating around 1,500 branches.

What happens when this model expires, and what comes next? This is precisely the question Silke Schönfeld addresses. Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence humorously and often tongue-in-cheek explores the question of the development of (cultural) society and needs. The former McDonald's restaurant becomes, sometimes documentary-style, sometimes staged, the protagonist of structural change in Herne, a city in the heart of the Ruhr region.